


Hitch My Wagon to the Sun

by redletters



Category: Henry VI - Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 3 - Shakespeare, Richard III - Shakespeare, Shakespeare - History Plays
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/pseuds/redletters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how the Nevilles almost, but not quite, made it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hitch My Wagon to the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lareinenoire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/gifts).



Louis led out Margaret - shining, pasteboard Margaret - and Warwick stepped back, out of the light, gesturing for young Edward and Lady Bona to precede him and leave him to consider what exactly had just happened.

First, Edward of March was no king, though he had been Warwick's sovereign not twenty minutes ago.

Second, Warwick had another teenage boy named Edward to raise to the throne - which was not itself a bad thing. Warwick liked boys, all enthusiasm and brutality before they began to think about the right and wrong of it, and this one might be more grateful than the last. Oh, he'd liked York, and he'd even liked York's son: March understood what it was to be a king, and to need advisers. Clarence was an unfortunate necessity, although Isobel seemed happy enough with him, and privately Warwick agreed with York's assessment that young Richard would have been the best of them all if he'd been born first, and hale.

Third, of everything that had happened in that slanting late afternoon, Warwick was most concerned about little Edward and little Anne.

His youngest daughter had become much too observant as she grew into womanhood, and particularly of him: she had developed a terrible habit of quirking her eyebrows when something intriguing was going on, when she ought to either be too stupid to notice or too clever to let her interest show. Warwick could imagine her ruling too well: a warm red queen with iron slippers. Little Edward was energetic and kind, he thought, but too uncertain. He would have to show him how to be a leader of a realm, not only a general of soldiers.

Warwick felt tired just thinking about it.

For this was what he was fighting for now: not his eldest daughter, but his younger; not one of York's boys, who he'd loved like his own, but this puppy-wet child who at least looked the part as well as March did, with his red-gold Plantagenet hair. And they'd certainly be all right as long as the queen was with them. As he'd discovered to his cost, the woman was nothing if not competent.

Warwick followed the other nobles down to the dining hall. He only hoped the boy would be clever enough to adore his daughter.

***

Anne lay on her stomach on Isobel's bed, picking through her jewel-box for the other blue sapphire earring.

"Don't you think my Edward looks like a young lion?" she said.

"I think he looks like a bit of fluff on my dress," her sister said, fussing with her own jewellery. Anne smiled. There were many wonderful things about being newly engaged to the new heir to the throne, but the _most_ wonderful thing was that she would be queen, and her sister wouldn't, and couldn't even accuse Anne of having parlayed for it.

She found the other earring, and saw that they were a different blue than she'd remembered.

"Here, Bel," she said, holding them out. "They match you better than me tonight."

Isobel looked up and took them warily. She was in a bland cream silk, looking like a dull blonde angel from a painting. Anne had chosen the dark yellow to bring out her black eyes and hair. Anne slipped her hand back into the jewel-box for her rubies, sharp and bright Lancaster red.

At dinner Anne sat between Edward and the Milanese ambassador, just within earshot of her sister, and spent the whole meal asking Edward his military plans and cooing over them. She felt laughter bubbling up with every sip of Louis' excellent wine. Edward was fair, with great blue eyes and a wide face, and if he seemed slightly stupid, Anne felt sure that was more the result of his cushioned upbringing than his father's illness.

Anne knew she was very pretty, and she kept her chin up whenever she felt the queen looking at her. Queen Margaret was chatting with Father, who was smiling as much as Father smiled, and Isobel was holding George's hand under the table as she always did.

"Have you ever seen a meal this happy?" Anne said without thinking to Edward. He looked surprised, then thoughtful.

"When I was very young," he said.

She glowed, and took his hand.

***

After making sure his daughters were doing as they should, and his wife was happy, Warwick paid attention to his new allies. Lady Bona was witty, beautiful and archly sarcastic, and Warwick was annoyed at March all over again: she'd have been delightful to have at court. Even her sober brother was laughing with her, as she imitated Charles the Burgundian stumbling through his wedding night. Louis was in pieces, and Margaret was beaming, the first genuine smile he'd ever seen on her. Where had this been? It transformed her from an iron grate to a sparkling glass, and the candlelight practically shone through her. She leaned forward to tease Bona about that _terribly_ tacky masque she'd heard they had in Bruges. Margaret laughed, and Bona laughed, and Louis called for more wine.

Soon enough young Edward's eyelids were drooping, although Anne looked as alert as ever. Warwick frowned: the wine had been heavy, and the boy was young, but a prince of any age needs stamina.

Louis noticed, and stood up gracefully. "Time for bed, I think," he said. "Tomorrow will be full of work."

"Leave the wine," Bona said to the servant clearing the tables. Anne looked over eagerly, but Warwick shook his head - he trusted his daughter but he was certainly not going to sit her next to Queen Margaret and Lady Bona and watch the French ladies pick over his daughter like blithe hawks. Anne stood and curtsied to the ladies, and to Edward, who bowed with precision, although the effect was undermined when he stumbled as he left. Anne tsked sarcastically at her father before taking her mother's arm to leave softly.

Warwick watched Margaret's tender gaze follow Edward out of the room, and again he wondered what it would have been like to have a son. Not a young man from another family he had to barter and persuade and build kingdoms for, but a son of his blood, a Neville, a Warwick, another self to be himself when he was mouldering in the ground.

"If he were mine," he said to Margaret, and as he said it he knew he meant it, "I'd kill them all tomorrow, with my hands."

She turned towards him and met his eyes. He thought, _I understand you better than I have ever understood anyone in my life, and you me. Our children will reign in England or we will die in a muddy field trying to win it for them._

"We'll kill them all soon," she said, a casual reassurance.

Bona refilled their wine glasses and waited for Clarence and Isobel to leave the hall, leaving them alone. "Now! Where shall you send little March?" she said, leaning on her elbows. "To little Burgundy?"

"To Scotland!" Warwick said. "It's miserable up there. And the damned Percies hate him."

Margaret laughed again.

Where had this _been?_

Bona stood and wrinkled her Roman nose perfectly. "I'm going to sleep, Anglish heads," she said. " _Bon nuit_ , cousin."

" _Bon nuit_ ," Margaret responded, smiling up at her.

" _Bon nuit_ , my lord," she said to Warwick. He looked up to bow his head, and she winked at him, nodding at Margaret. Her face said, _Get in while you can, you're going to war tomorrow._

"Oh, _please_ ," Warwick said.

Bona disappeared in a pleased hum of silk and he shook his head at these French...French. Anne and the girls were upstairs; and anyway, although he was surprised to find himself enjoying the queen's company, much more than he ever had at home, Warwick still couldn't quite shake the deeply held impression that Margaret of Anjou killed and consumed her lovers after mating.

"I hope they get along," Margaret said, looking out past the door. "Your Anne is so lovely. I just hope she...understands how to talk to him. You have to be very forthright with kings, you know. They have so much to think about, they're very easily confused." She was quiet. "My uncle was like that too, it's not just my Henry. It will be the York boy soon enough."

"Mmm," he said.

"Oh, don't look like that!" she said, suddenly. "I know they say he's mad but it's not easy, you know. You couldn't do it."

"I have no desire to try," Warwick said. He smiled at her, or at least pressed his lips together.

Margaret flickered her hand towards his face, then burst out laughing and refilled his wine cup. "I like you, Neville. I'm glad you're with us."

"That makes a change." He reached for the wine and filled her cup as well - it was only polite, after all.

"I've always liked you!" she said. "You didn't like me!"

"I liked you!" he said.

"Well, Richard York didn't like me," Margaret amended, kicking off her slippers and pulling her legs under her skirt. "And that was that as far as you were concerned." Warwick shrugged, stretched his legs and drank; no use arguing this late in the evening. He looked up at the ceiling, where a small square painting of the Maid of Orleans hung just above the window.

"Do you remember," and he would never have said this sober, but it had been the most delirious day - God's thumbs, he'd woken up a sworn liege lord of King Edward IV and now look at him - "do you remember when Eleanor Cobham was convicted of witchcraft?"

Margaret rested her face on her hand and drank again. "I _hated_ her," she said.

"She hated you," he said. "She couldn't have children. It was the most mysterious thing. Why would you want the crown if you can't have children? Didn't she realise what would have happened? There's no sense getting it for yourself if you can't pass it on to blood." He hiccuped, tasted vinegar, and was suddenly embarrassed. He pushed back his chair, and it scraped on the stone floor. "I am for bed, my lady," he said. "Good night. Tomorrow will be a happy day."

"Good night," she said. When he looked back she was holding her cup and staring up at the empty, airy hall.

His Anne was asleep when he reached their bed, and as he drifted into sleep Warwick say a boy, a boy with a crown on his head, with the curling Neville hair and squared shoulders that looked like Edward of March. _We'll kill them all soon_ , he said into his wife's hair. _Together._


End file.
